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Greatest Gift is Love

John Collins02/13/20121 Corinthians 13 Gives us the key to understanding the true meaning of God and his instructions to us as Christians: it's all about love. If we have love, all that Paul preached against will simply vanish away.

Paul said that even if he spoke with the tongues of an angel, he would only be making a loud noise unless his ministry had love. If he was able to see and understand great mysteries, and even make mountains disappear, he was nothing without love.

A message of love endures, and does not produce followers that are envious or "puffed up" as Paul puts it. Prophecies may fail, tongues of angels may cease to speak, knowledge of mysteries will vanish away. According to Paul, we know only part of the prophecy and the mysteries anyway, and they will vanish away.

Paul likens this to the time he "spoke as a child", and "understood as a child". Once he learned the true meaning of God, he looked beyond these things. Since he could not see everything in these mysteries, he compared it to looking through a dark glass of wine; it can't be seen clearly, so look beyond the mysteries. Instead, look to faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

As Christians, we should ask ourselves: are we following a ministry of love? Has it produced a people that are boastful that they know the mysteries or the ones who gave the mysteries, or has it produced a people that only focus on love? If the voice has "vanished away", do we still look behind to that voice, or are we still speaking "as a child?"